FreeGameDev

Mojotron is a twin stick action game inspired by Robotron and Llamatron. While the graphics are a little unusual, the gameplay is excellent. It currently requires ClanLib 0.6. Two players are supported.



https://gitlab.com/dulsi/mojotron

What is my plan?

I'm working on a remastered version. I want to switch it to SDL2. Then update the graphics to something less crazy. For the story, the robots have destroyed humanity. The robots have been testing cybernetics on monkeys. Two of those monkeys break free and try to escape to the wilderness. The enemies would be switched to different kinds of robots.

Edit: Stumbled on old windows version https://archive.org/details/Mojotron

Nice that you are taking up the upgrading work of such titles.

Did you have a look at OGA already for a high quality & suitable sprites set?

Julius {l Wrote}:Did you have a look at OGA already for a high quality & suitable sprites set?

I looked a little bit but decided I needed to update the code base to SDL2 first.

Player animation is not really a walk cycle. More like random twitching. It runs even if not moving.

The "obstacles" in the game are mushrooms. It has a four frame animation that is not currently used. I substituted different graphics and it was a blur. The game is running at 50fps. The animation frame is changed every time the screen is displayed. At that speed any animation is basically useless.

I've replaced some graphics.

This has a floor graphic instead of a solid color. The AOL CD has been replaced with the spiderbot. The mushrooms have been replaced by various power generators (Symphonium, Temple combined with Stock Exchange, Solar Plant, and Space Module).

These changes are not pushed to the git repo yet. My current plan is to attempt a kickstarter for Mojotron. I've been wondering about funding open source games for a while. So I'd like to get the remastered version to a complete state and "sell" it on kickstarter. If the kickstarter succeeds, the changes are pushed into the git repo. (If it fails I'll decide what I want to do but I hoping it won't come to that.)

It's been a while but I have finally prepared a Kickstarter. The plan is to launch on Aug 6th. You can signup to be notified if you want:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/850526497/mojotron-robot-wars

The kickstarter is now live.

The kickstarter unfortunately did not meet the funding goal. But that is no reason not to release the game. Mojotron: Robot Wars is available on itch.io in binaries for Linux and Windows. The game is not my complete vision but more updates will come. Source code is available on gitlab.

Too bad it didn't reach the funding goal. Unfortunately I'm short of money (isn't everybody?) so I didn't kickstart it and didn't pay 2 dollars on itch.io. Sorry for that.

I grabbed the source code and managed to build it. I had to tweak it because it uses C++ 20 features but my default g++ isn't capable of that. But it worked (with manually running G++ 10).

I like the graphics and the game seems to be worth playing. Fortunately it doesn't need a joystick. I played it with AWSD and cursor-keys. Too bad it isn't my kind of game. The game is fast and I have to multitask. Both things I'm not good at. But admittedly the speed and multitasking are exactly what makes the game fun!

Greetings
Peter

PeterX {l Wrote}:Too bad it didn't reach the funding goal. Unfortunately I'm short of money (isn't everybody?) so I didn't kickstart it and didn't pay 2 dollars on itch.io. Sorry for that.

No problem. The kickstarter and itch.io are an experiment at funding. Kickstarter didn't work this time but I think I could do it a lot better now.

PeterX {l Wrote}:I grabbed the source code and managed to build it. I had to tweak it because it uses C++ 20 features but my default g++ isn't capable of that. But it worked (with manually running G++ 10).

Glad you got to try it even if it isn't your kind of game. For C++ I like the new features of C++. It allows me to drop boost. I really want modules but when I experimented with them on a new project the compiler crashed. I accepted the old C++ for a long time but as I've seen the new features I want them. I had to modify the makefile to build on Debian as well because it didn't default to a high enough C++.

dulsi {l Wrote}:Player animation is not really a walk cycle. More like random twitching. It runs even if not moving.

The "obstacles" in the game are mushrooms. It has a four frame animation that is not currently used. I substituted different graphics and it was a blur. The game is running at 50fps. The animation frame is changed every time the screen is displayed. At that speed any animation is basically useless.

It sounds like the animation in your game may be running too quickly, which is causing the twitching and blurriness in the graphics. To address this, you may need to slow down the animation by increasing the time between each frame change. This can be done by adjusting the code that controls the animation so that it updates at a slower rate.

In addition, it might be helpful to consider adding more frames to the animation for the obstacles (mushrooms) to create smoother movement. Four frames may not be enough to achieve a smooth animation at 50fps. Increasing the number of frames in the animation will give you more control over the movement of the obstacles and can help to create a more visually appealing experience for the player.

johnyy {l Wrote}:It sounds like the animation in your game may be running too quickly, which is causing the twitching and blurriness in the graphics. To address this, you may need to slow down the animation by increasing the time between each frame change. This can be done by adjusting the code that controls the animation so that it updates at a slower rate.

In addition, it might be helpful to consider adding more frames to the animation for the obstacles (mushrooms) to create smoother movement. Four frames may not be enough to achieve a smooth animation at 50fps. Increasing the number of frames in the animation will give you more control over the movement of the obstacles and can help to create a more visually appealing experience for the player.

Slowing down the animation for the obstacles was enough. I don't think adding more frames will make it better at this point. I really need to go through all the sprites and make a more consistent style for everything. I feel that will improve things more than additional animation frames. For the player animation I did switch it to not use the random twitching. It has a walk cycle it uses.